Sister Emily Elise Shill

  Hello Friends and Family, I'm sorry it's been such a long time. I hope this letter can make up for some missed weeks. I'm going on 4 weeks here in Centennial. My getting here was a little late. When transfers came out, Sister Anderson and I had colds, so my leaving was delayed for about 2 weeks until it all worked out. This was really good for me in a lot of ways. Fruita was the only place I'd been on my mission, the only place I'd lived for 7 months without seeing my family. I'd grown very attached. But having 2 weeks to wrap my head around leaving gave me some detachment time. In that time, I was still Sister Anderson's companion, and we began getting to know the Fruita 3rd and 4th wards. Though Sister Anderson was staying, she was over a new area, and Fruita 1 was combined with the Fruita 2 area. While we were there, we had a lesson with one of the family's in the Fruita 4th ward. I instantly fell in love with them. Walking away from that lesson ...

  Hey friends and family! I have been transferred! I am now in the Centennial/South Glenn area. We cover two wards, have SEVEN people in our teaching pool, and one of them is on date to be baptized on March 26! It's crazy! Combine that with our awesome apartment: I still have my own bathroom, but now I also feel comfortable sitting on the carpet because it's clean and new, have functioning nonstick pans, and the luxury of going through all the clothes left by other Sister missionaries! So I basically feel like I've been transferred to the land Bountiful! I still love Fruita with my whole heart and miss it, but I am incredibly grateful for the chance to be here in Centennial. My new companion is Sister Emma Friberg! For the first time ever, I feel like I immediately clicked with my companion. She likes science, studying and talking about the gathering of Israel, Choir music, Broadway music, alternative rock, and folk Indie!!! So basically she is a woman after my own heart...

  Hey everybody! Good news: Carey is back on date and surrounded with more support than ever! Bad news: the other lady we were teaching dropped us. She texted, "I'm cancelling Tuesday with no future appointments." Neutral news (because I'm trying to reserve judgement before getting sad)- I'm leaving Fruita. I don't know where to, or who I'll be with yet. I only know today because my companion got texted that she will be training. I'm going to miss Fruita so much. But I suppose this is the life of a missionary. And I will come back here again. It's the closest part of the mission to my home! Anyway, pray for Carey if you can! She will get baptized with or without me! But all the faith she can get will help! Love you all, Sister Shill

  Hey everyone! This last week has been a crazy one. We filmed a church ad because the Elders who were supposed to do it couldn't follow instructions. We had some wonderful lessons with members of our ward we hadn't been in touch with recently, and we've found some sweet ward members who have been willing to befriend the women we are teaching. So just little good things.

Sister Campa has been transferred to Carbondale to speak Spanish! We are so excited for her! So I got a new companion: Sister Anderson! Right off the bat, it looks like we are going to have a lot of fun together! She is the most curious and adventurous of my companions, so we've been making plans to drive out to the end of our area which is actually in the mountains! Today we went shopping and got matching Butterfly rings at TJ Max! Anyway, it looks like we'll be having lots of fun while we get carried away in the work together!

Dear Friends and Family, I am happy to write to you once again! I have good news in regards to missionary work, but also my personal development. I've been reading Jordan Peterson's new book "Beyond Order: 12 More Rules for Life", and I finished chapter 7: Work as hard as you possible can on at least one thing and see what happens. At the beginning of that chapter, JP talks about the cost of not picking something, and basically describes the horrible life of a undergrad student without a major: something I have both experienced and witnessed my peers experiencing. At the end of this first part of the chapter, he says, "Do you really want to be everything you could be? Is that not too much? Might it not be better to be something specific (and then, perhaps, add to that)? Would that not come as a relief- even though it is also a sacrifice?" I stood up from reading that and said, "I'm going to be a science teacher!" It pretty much just clicked. Be...

Dear Friends and Family, I have had such a wonderful week! I am so excited to tell you about it. You likely remember Anna from my last letter. Well, I am happy to say that she is progressing quite well and I am very hopeful about her future, primarily because she is so willing to act. On our first real lesson, we came to address her questions. When we arrived, she had the Book of Mormon we gave her sitting on the coffee table. As we sat to begin the lesson, Anna pulled out another Book of Mormon. Anna had previously told us how at one time she was helping her friend from the Redlands ward clean house, when she found a stack of 9 or 10 copies of the Book of Mormon and asked if she could have one. Naturally, her friend was more than happy to let her keep it. However, when Anna couldn't find it, we gave her another copy for good measure.  But now we had come, and she had found her copy from her friend. She had also discovered that it was a slightly older print with bigger font, w...